A letter to the Electronic Telegraph, published 21 April 1999, in response to the ET article concerning US cities and their Emergency Ops bunkers. Please don't reinforce the author's idea that we're white trash militants, delusional yuppies or crafty politicians if you write to his freely-given, openly-published e-mail address (he's apparently a UCLA faculty member, employee or student).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000154642417163&rtmo=0XbJG0sq&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/99/4/21/fbwed9.html

From:

Marc Mayerson, Los Angeles, California, USA

marcm@college.ucla.edu

Re: Debunkering Y2K Date: 21 April 1999 SIR - Lest our impressionable brothers and sisters in the UK get the wrong impression from James Langton's report of US political types supposedly running for the bunkers in anticipation of a Y2K apocalypse [US sets up bunkers to beat Millennium chaos, 18 April 1999], let me assure you that Americans almost to the one correctly expect nothing more on New Year's Day than a very bad hangover.

The only ones who are running around like Chicken Little are white trash militants hoping for a disaster to put them out of their collective misery, delusional yuppies who will buy into anything - from talking car alarms to rooftop radio telescopes - if it will keep them from experiencing anything inconvenient like car theft or errant asteroids, and crafty politicians who will say and do anything to capture both the spotlight and a hefty budget allocation.

Do not take the US public's insoucience as complacency; on the contrary, platters across the country are busily being polished as I write, waiting to hold the heads of politicians who have willingly expended public money on what will inevitably be shown to be the folly of this millennium's fever, the Y2K non-catastrophe.

I'm sure there will a few platters left over for reporters and editors as well. Care to stick your necks out a little further?

End of cut and paste.

What a very silly person, says an

-- Incredulous Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 21, 1999

Answers

er, O.G. the guy who wrote the letter is a university student...you know - the folks for whom the term sophomoric was coined?

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), April 21, 1999.

What about me? I don't fall into any of the catagories given. I'm just an old gramma who has seen and heard alot over the years. I'm not deaf yet and have three sons who are working in the computor world of today. I also can read and am still of sound mind. This Marc person has to be one of those know it all youngsters. He better learn that things do change and things do happen and be prepared to adjust. Our world in changing fast this days and to think it is not....is folly indeed.

-- Old Gramma (Gotitincalif@webtv.net), April 21, 1999.

Many of the older emergency operations centers WERE underground. Leftovers from the fifties nuke war era. Still not a bad idea unless your PD is sited on a floodplain or you live in earthquake country.

We live in earthquake country and the new EOC they're planning will still have several stories UNDERGROUND

-- quasimodo (hunchback@belltower.com), April 21, 1999.

Another example, that the gene pool is in trouble!

-- SCOTTY (BLehman202@aol.com), April 21, 1999.

Personally, I prefer poor 'country-folk' to rich 'city-slickers', but...

One can only think in terms of what they know. The mass-media has enormous resources to make its case (no Y2K problem, in this case). The only media outlets that worry about Y2K DO SOUND LIKE STUPID WHITE TRASH. Although I listen to, and agree with right-wing- wacko radio, they often sound like idiots. Even worse, is the STUPID ads for gold, water-filters, and snake-oil. With regard to water filters, I often hear people lie about what the filters (compared with purifiers) are capable of. This hurts credibility.

If one does not research the facts (a very time-consuming and inexact task), the big-money mass-media sounds MUCH more credible.

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@Anonymous99.xxx), April 21, 1999.